There will be no lack of commentary on Apple’s iPod bonanza today but one thing that stuck out was how quickly Apple decided to drop the price of the iPhone.
It”s surprise given given the initial reaction to the iPhone was its high cost. What happened? And how do all those people who rushed out to buy an iPhone feel now given they could have saved themselves a $200 if they had been a little more patient?
One more thought/prediction: the iPod Touch is going to cannibalize iPhone sales. The Touch has everything many consumers would want except the phone – and you have to believe there will be an awful lot of people willing to sacrifice having a built-in phone so they can get all the other features without locking themselves into a long-term contract with AT&T.
Links:
- Joey deVilla is enthusiastic about the Touch; pointing out that Canadians will avoid the “darn, I bought an iPhone” feeling because, after all, the iPhone has yet to be released in Canada by the fine folks at Rogers.
- Jupiter Research’s Mike Gartenberg provides a nice wrap-up of the day while stating the obvious: Apple now has a “product line that’s going to be hard for Apple’s competitors to match”.
I agree that iPhone sales will be hurt by the Touch, but think of all the people willing to abandon their now “Classic” iPod in favor of the Touch. It has so much to offer at a competitive price – if I was buying a new mp3 player tomorrow, I think it would be a bad idea to even consider anything else.
Chris,
I think the Touch will pull demand from the iPhone and the Nano given it offers a lot of bang for the buck. It will be interesting to see if the idea of the all in one device (aka the iPhone) is not really what consumers want after all.
Chris, I don’t the Touch has enough storage for that crowd to abandon it just yet.
Anon, you might be right – I never thought about storage. 16gb isn’t terrible, but compared to 160gb it pales in comparison. Good point!
Mark, what you said is so true and also, having a built-in web browser, surely people could use Skype or a similar program in the iPod Touch?
Still Wondering why Apple thinks this is a good Idea.
I think Apple believes the Touch is a good idea because it’s better for Apple to be in this market as opposed to giving someone else the opportunity to establish a foothold. If cannibalization of the iPhone happens, so be it.
In terms of memeory, Anon makes a great point. That said, I have a 4GB iPod Mini so 16GB looks huge from here.
16GB is woefully small – that is insufficient to hold many music collections. Then throw in the fact that you are more likely to have video content now that you have a better screen – which calls for even more storage. Why wouldn’t they throw a hard drive in the iPod Touch? Surely it is large enough to hold one.
I would have bought the iPod touch ASAP – but not unless it has at least 40GB of storage.
Regarding Skype – I doubt that the iPod touch has a microphone so that wouldn’t work.